FINALLY back at it.

I have been intending to get back on some sort of running schedule (and blogging again) forever.  I am determined to stick it through this time because I really enjoy this format and interacting with my fellow runners.

I debated for awhile how I wanted to go about training for a marathon.  My original plan was to follow Hal Higdon's Novice supreme which has put a 12 week program ending with a 6 mile long run at the front of his 18 week novice training program.  The main reason I had chosen this plan was to give myself a longer amount of time before mileage above 6ish miles per run started.  I had switched to a lower carb diet but was planning to incorporate more carbs into my diet closer to long runs.  Well, I ended up having some issues with the lower carbs so I decided to begin reintroducing some carbs into my diet.  Following that, my runs started getting stronger, and my mind began to change.

I decided that I had to have some sort of schedule or something to work toward.  I have said it before on here but I have a TERRIBLE time sticking with regular runs when I don't have something to follow. After speaking with The Husband and we decided to follow a 12 week half program (the same one I followed when training) and I will transition from that over into the marathon program.  I just need to decide if I am going to skip that last week that the program calls to run the half so that I am not too sore to start the first week of the marathon program.

I just finished week 2 of the half marathon program today.  I am going to go ahead and do recaps again like I did last time to keep myself accountable to you all as well.

Week	Mon	Tues	Weds	Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun
2 10-14 to 10-20	Stretch & Strengthen Circuit training (planks, burpees, push ups, etc)	3 mile run 3.2 miles 30:47 9:38/mi	2 mile run or Cross 2.01 mi 18:11 9:04/mi	3 mile run Rest	Rest 3.01 mi 26:27 8:48/mi	4 mile run Rest	30 min cross 3 mi walk 48:55 16:30/mi 4 mi run 35:20 8:49/mi

Monday: I did a circuit that I made up for this evening. 50 jumping jacks then 3 rounds each of 10 pushups, situps, burpees, tricep dips, oblique twists, and 20 second planks.

Tuesday: I ran with a girl I met at a local 5k a few weeks ago.  It was the first time she had run in awhile and she did awesome! It was a lot of fun but talking for the entire run will take it out of you for sure!

Wednesday: I decided to get out before The Husband had to leave for work and get 2 miles in.  I was so glad that I did! It was a nice start to the day.

Thursday: Took a rest day because Rex had a soccer game that threw our plans off.

Friday: Did Thursday's 3 miles down in my little town and was CRAZY surprised when I held sub 9 minute miles without even realizing it.  I have never managed that for multiple miles and normally it's the first mile and I started too fast causing me to peter out by mile 3.  I see signs of getting stronger!

Saturday: It poured a cold rain all day and I just could not bring myself to go out in it or get on the treadmill so I decided to double up on Sunday.

Sunday: For the last few weeks I have been meeting with my weight loss buddy on Sunday mornings to power walk.  It is a nice time to get out and chat sans kids (she is also my homeschool buddy).  We normally do 5 miles but we both had plans today so we only did 3. I knew this ahead of time so I took my running gear with me with intentions of heading straight back out.  When we got back to our cars, I stripped down a layer and took off again and had another awesome sub 9 average run!! I don't know where this is coming from but I LOVE it!

Time to start week 3.  The mileage bumps up a tad this week, but not much.  I have a couple race recaps to add later this week as well as a couple possible giveaways to do.  I'm going to leave you with my most recent progress pic.  This is the first one where I can actually see some progress =)

Left: My first 5k  March 23, 2013               Right:10k Sept 21, 2013

Just when I thought things were calming down... (non-running related)

it came time to gear up for school!  While we homeschool, and my kids are still very young, we have a very flexible school schedule but the kiddos are showing serious signs of needing some structure in their lives so I have been prepping.  It is reminding me a lot of when I was in a classroom. 

We were ALMOST ready to start.  Rex is 5.5 and going into 1st grade this year and Curly just turned 4 and is starting kindergarten this year so I had ordered everything for them and this week I pulled everything out to get it set up.  I got the first few lessons of our reading program ready, got math pages put into binders, and got all of our phonogram cards torn apart and put into the card box. 

Then, The Husband looks at me during a discussion when I was telling him I would like to get a table for the school area rather than the desks that we have now, and tells me that it would be great to be able to move school into the playroom.  Well, my brain took that and ran with it and for the last 2 days I have been in hyper-drive.  So far I have: organized Curly's closet, deep cleaned her room, picked up a cabinet and bed for her room, turned said cabinet into a dress up closet, had The Husband move her room around and take a shelf down, then move it back and put the shelf back up (sorry TH), and moved all of her stuff from the playroom into her room.

Still left to do is deep cleaning Rex's room and moving his toys into his room from the toy room then taking all of the school stuff down off the wall and moving it into the new school room. I am excited to have more wall space to work with! Non-school related, we are picking up Rex's bed and painting it. He wants the headboard to be camouflaged and The Husband is going to Home Depot soon and getting materials to build shelves for their rooms so we can have storage for the toys moving in there. And, don't tell the Husband but I have visions of paining their rooms very, very soon. I have quite a bit of stuff on craigslist that I am hoping sell soon because I am running out of room to store things in the meantime.

Hopefully I can have some before and after pictures soon of our new school room area and of the kids' room makeovers.  Also, hopefully we can get started on school sometime before December! =) 

Since I haven't mentioned running yet, I should also say that I am trying to decide on a traiining program.  The Husband mentioned maybe I should run a half program a couple times from now until time to start the marathon program and then start at a normal marathon training point? I haven't decided yet and need to look at the calendar to decide.  I need to give myself as much weight loss time before I reintroduce higher carbs as possible and since the last couple days I have been off the wagon, it may take FOREVER to make it to goal!

Happy Running!